Trump backs Moore for AL Senate

4 months ago

3 Min Read

Despite allegations of sexual misconduct

By Luca Peluzzi

Eight different women accusing a Senate candidate are not enough for casting doubts on his candidature if he’s a Republican, at least for Donald Trump. Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate, has been accused in the recent weeks by an increasing number of women of having sexually harassed them when they were teenagers. The episodes started in the 70s, where the girls were between 14 and 19 years old and Roy Moore was an assistant district attorney in his 30’s.

When the Washington Post broke the story, one girl was investigated in particular: Leigh Corfman was a 14 year-old teen and Roy Moore a 32 year-old attorney when in 1979 he took the girl to his home in the woods; he then undressed down to his underwear and undressed her down to her bra and underwear, starting to touch her and guiding her hand to touch him over his underwear. Other women said Moore forcibly kissed them or grabbed their butts.

And here Trump comes in. The US President, during the Republican primary to choose the Alabama Republican candidate, supported Sen. Luther Strange, Moore’s opponent. But when Moore won the runoff and was then accused of sexual harassment Trump began to support him, because apparently everything is in any case better than a democratic candidate. In fact, when asked to address the allegations against Roy Moore Trump said “I can tell you one thing for sure. We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat, Jones,” – Doug Jones is Moore’s opponent – “I’ve looked at his record, it’s terrible on crime, it’s terrible on the border, it’s terrible on the military.”

When a reporter shouted out in response “Is an accused child molester better than a Democrat?”, Trump responded: “He denies it. I mean, if you look at what is really going on and you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it”, adding that “he says it didn’t happen, and you have to listen to him also.”

What many have objected to is that Trump hasn’t had the same reaction to the Democratic Senator Al Franken just some days earlier. Franken was accused by a Los Angeles radio newscaster of kissing and groping her more than a decade ago, realizing a picture when Franken was grabbing her breast while she was asleep.

In this case, Trump lashed out the democrat tweeting that “the Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words” asking “Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps?”, suggesting Franken might have gone on to take advantage of the sleeping woman.

Then he attacked Franken hypocrisy, saying that “just last week he was lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment and respect for women.”

Many Republican party senators strongly disagreed with Trump. South Carolina senator Tim Scott called the accusations “very strong, and credible, and the denial has been very weak.” John Thune of South Dakota told Fox News: “I want to be on the side of right when history writes [this] story.” But for the moment this isn’t making Trump change his mind: a teen molester could be better than a liberal.